


next time you shoot, make sure to aim

by 127AM (hotmess_ex_press)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Assassins & Hitmen, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Vampires, a sexy little vignette of nihilism. i'm going thru something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28448373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmess_ex_press/pseuds/127AM
Summary: Johnny pushes the unlit cigarette along his teeth, looks at Taeyong slantwise. There's color in his cheeks, high and sweet. He's the kind of gorgeous that catches you between the lungs, the type of lover that drapes over your body like butter on a burn. Johnny could watch him forever and never need to touch, never need to eat, never need salvation.--In which an angel orders a hit on a vampire.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	next time you shoot, make sure to aim

Back in senior year, Doyoung's superlative was _most likely to own a business_. Johnny remembers it, sharp like a photograph shorn from the then-glossy pages of his yearbook and pasted to the forefront of his memory, though at the time his eyes were glazed as they took in the name and he never asked for Doyoung's signature, for a well wish or hasty number.

"Johnny Suh," Doyoung says after his shoulder knocks into Johnny's at a crowded bar. It's stern, not taffy-pulled and rounded like an apology. An accusation more than anything, and Johnny feels the edges of his alcohol go taut.

Doyoung carries a briefcase and wears a suit of pale blue. His throat has hollowed, jaw whittled itself into something lethal, and he takes a moment to place. Johnny sucks his teeth. "You look different."

Doyoung's lips curve then go brittle. "I died."

"Oh." Johnny downs the rest of his drink, catches the last overflowing drops on his thumb and looks at Doyoung sideways. "That sucks."

Johnny buys them two whiskeys and drinks both, then takes Doyoung home, where he lounges graceful and translucent as a pearl in the center of Johnny's unmade bed. Blue suit jacket slipping over silky skin, gleaming opaline in the scant light.

He allows Johnny the courtesy of a few kisses, an untucked hem and three buttons undone, before placing that briefcase between them.

"I have a task for you."

Johnny sighs and settles between Doyoung's legs, siphoned from his lust like butter from cream by the cold knife of Doyoung's voice. He flicks the clasps of the briefcase away and cracks it open.

Nestled in dusk-grey velvet lay an ivory gun and three wooden bullets. Johnny exhales a low laugh and shakes his head, lets the case hiss closed. Doyoung's eyes are sweetly blank, fingers twisting over the edges of the case like curling ice-white vines to fasten the latches.

"I don't do jobs like that anymore." Least of all for dead men.

Doyoung taps the case, recites, "Three bullets. Carved from the holy cross. One for the heart, one for the throat, one for backup. This is how you slay a vampire."

"A vampire," Johnny repeats as Doyoung slips out from under him and into his shoes. Leaving the briefcase where his body rested, cool and decadent: a less welcome intrusion in Johnny's sheets. He follows as Doyoung glides to the door. Three bullets, small enough to swallow, and a thousand years of life poured out for a god he doesn't trust--he doesn't do jobs like this anymore. He needs a smoke, needs another drink. Doyoung leans against the doorframe with arms crossed, doesn't shift or smile as Johnny's fingers circle his wrist. "What's in it for me?"

"Deliverance." Doyoung plucks a ticket from the lining of his suit and presses it to Johnny's chest. "Unconditional. A suite in heaven with your name on it. Do well; you may not make it otherwise."

Johnny was never sure about all that salvation stuff. "How about a kiss? A _real_ one. Before you go."

Whites of his eyes glistening like diamond, simmering with a chilly fire, Doyoung's fingertips brush Johnny's shoulder, trace the scar beneath his ear with an indifference bordering pity. "Your plane boards in three hours."

He leaves the door open, leaves Johnny peering out into the empty hallway. Turning the ticket in his hands, over and over.

Johnny steps out of the airport at three a.m., tumbles into the swirl of noise, the grit and glitter of Bangkok. Pretty girls smile up at him like smoking guns and decadence is cheap, dances and drinks and neon drugs.

The smokes are sweet, sweeter than back home. Johnny picks up a pack and drags his feet through yesterday's rain in the gutter as he looks for his motel.

Peeking between clouds and smog, the moon wanes, a ghost of a gem. The city is electric, all pink and red like the guts of its inhabitants scooped out and splattered through the streets. Red, red and violent magenta and overripe yellow pooling across the city too sweet and bright, but Johnny's room is earthen: brown and black and lingering must. The window won't close, and the snake-tongue of Bangkok's humid season seeps through the crack to lick sticky heat down the ridge of Johnny's back.

He peels his shirt off and lays on his side, smokes until the sky bleeds with dull rose and he is softly lowered into sleep.

Ten is a wild, ancient creature, though the years have smoothed his edges into something slicker, something divine. He lives with his lover in an apartment in the fleshy, ever-bleeding heart of the city, and doesn't mind the sun--so old and so beautiful that he's tamed her, taught her holy rays to curve around his skin.

Old, and beautiful, and doomed. Even the undead can't escape a god's warrant, Johnny muses as he tucks the ivory gun against his heart.

There are a dozen photos folded into the file Doyoung left him. Ten's bike, his apartment, his ashtray and the wounds painting his victim's throats. A few shots of his lover, Lee Taeyong, always with an absence beside him that Johnny assumes is Ten.

Lee Taeyong. Smoking on a balcony in his clubgoing clothes, sequins and chains and scarlet smearing across his neck. Clinging to an invisible waist on the back of Ten's bike, his crimson hair thrown into his eyes. Taeyong, stretched bare and gleaming along the black silk of Ten's bed, throat thrust forward in phantom pleasure.

Johnny lingers over that one. Eyes Taeyong's frozen arching and mouth forever torn into a groan as he waits for his coffee, keeps the photo just in sight as if it will bite him, or disintegrate, if left alone.

Some lovers are made shy and languid by dawn, but Ten and Taeyong skip right over it, climb into noon like an old dress. The air blisters hot and humid, last night's eyeliner smeared into shadow around Ten's milky red eyes. Johnny's shirt clings in the swarming sun, sheer with sweat; Ten's skin is fragile beneath the light, gossamer, spun and broken by the dark pulsations of his veins. He straddles his bike and lights up, tilts his head back and exhales into the sun's unblinking gaze.

He's tempting fate, tempting god with his burn-pink lips bowed to the day and footsteps bloody beneath their leather soles. Heels on the ground, Johnny scrubs his fingertips along his nape.

Taeyong emerges like bad poetry from a sweetheart's mouth, clambers onto the back of Ten's bike and sweeps the cigarette from his hand. He's in black leather and too-red rubies, he's lovely, his hair streams behind him like ribbons and veins as they flow into the street. His mouth passing seamlessly between Ten's shoulder and the stained cigarette, delicate cloud of his breath in between.

Johnny grimaces at the hum of his engine, weaves through the cars behind them and just out of sight.

There's the sound of blaring horns, and Johnny digs his boots into the ground. Ten has stopped, motorcycle stalling. A hundred angry cars swerve around him and Taeyong grabs at the fabric of his jacket. The cigarette has gone out.

"I was here," Ten says, "before metal and fire."

Cars spin past them, between them, shredding Ten's words like clouds in the wind. Taeyong looks scared: he is mortal, and a reaper waits on every street corner in Bangkok.

Ten points north, then south. "You could see the mountains still, and the sea everywhere else. Before this city was a village there was only earth."

Johnny can't catch the words, but he sees Taeyong's trembling lips, a beacon flashing and murmuring as his arms tighten, as he folds himself into Ten's spine. The sun is abrasive, sky puckered and split with clouds and pollution. "Ten..."

"The sky was so blue you could tear chunks of it away, and it would drip down your wrist. Blood was the warmest thing, blood and skin."

Sweat quivers on Johnny's brow. A biker skims by, so close it stings Johnny's arm. He hisses, flinching back. Taeyong's eyes are closed as he pleads, "What are you saying?"

Ten is radiant--Johnny can see the circuit of his blood, pounding blue-black against his neck, his jaw. "I'm saying by the time I could walk in the sun again the sky was grey, and the ground swallowed by concrete, and you can't see past the nearest neon sign. Nothing remains."

He twists in his seat, laves a kiss below Taeyong's eye with a tenderness that makes Johnny glance away, shame prickling his eyes. They are two clots in the merciless surge of the streets.

Ten straightens slowly, faces the road and revs the engine. "I'm saying you're gorgeous. It's been sweet."

Johnny glides to a stop on the narrow street of Ten's apartment, stares at the sun's fading halo until Ten's cologne is almost close enough to smell as he helps Taeyong onto the sidewalk. Their shoes click and scrape. The sun's imprint flashes, black and bright behind Johnny's eyes.

At the door of their building, Ten swivels back. He meets Johnny's gaze and smiles, heavy with something candy-soft and knowing. Johnny shrinks into the shadows.

Minutes later, the glass doors of a balcony flash open and Taeyong slinks into the predusk air, face freshly scrubbed. Ten slips out behind, nudging him away from the railing. He drapes over it himself, gazing sideways at the horizon. Johnny rubs the hilt of the gun up and down his thigh--his marks have never noticed him before, no sooner than they notice their deaths, at least.

Ten looks close to human with the waves combed out of his hair, shirtless and tinged pink by the sunset. Grinning gentle and crystalline, Taeyong presses Ten's jaw into his palm.

It's a clear shot, too clear to be anything but an invitation. Johnny fingers the trigger and thinks of the bullets, the way they would whistle through Ten's chest like butter, like alabaster, the slow familiar crumble of Ten's body, so mortal in only a moment. Taeyong's cry as his lover who promised forever wilts in his arms. Johnny thinks of Ten's sad, small smile and throws the gun into the gutter.

The engine of his bike roars. He's headed downtown: this is Bangkok, after all. Where beer is cheaper than water, and Johnny wants to drown.

"You disappointed us," Doyoung states. Johnny jolts out of slumber, scrambles back against the headboard.

Doyoung glows, plucked from the heavens to tower at the foot of Johnny's bed and lay his ice-sharp tongue. Slumping against the wall, Johnny sighs and fumbles for a smoke.

"A million murderers like you would kill for a chance like that," he goes on, lips curling wryly. "After all, what's one more soul staining your hands in the face of eternal bliss?"

Johnny tucks his chin to his chest, feels smoke sting his eyes. His chest tightens and releases at once, an inverted collapse. "Ten?"

"Gone." Doyoung snatches the case up and smiles curtly. He really is so beautiful, now. Johnny wonders how he died, wonders how many lives were stoppered by his quick fingers and rapier tongue and how he bargained his way out of it. His knuckles are smoothed in silver, skin perfumed in rain. "Like I said, a million murderers. Evidently better at their jobs than you."

He crosses the room. "Wait," Johnny stubs out his cigarette and trips after him.

Doyoung raises a brow, slender fingers clicking like stone against the doorknob.

"Why him?" Ten, of too many sunless centuries and rueful teeth and a lover sweet like cinnamon.

"My god is hungry," Doyoung pauses, and his eyes glint. "He always is."

Johnny exhales, rubs his chest. Doyoung glances over him a final time.

"Enjoy your damnation."

"Likewise," Johnny responds, but he's already gone.

Stuffed between the wall and coffee maker is that picture of Taeyong, long-limbed and celestial. Johnny shoves it between dirty shirts in his duffel bag, then takes it out and eases back into bed.

He stares at it for a while, the intoxicated contours of Taeyong's face. Cheeks carved by his rapture, brow creased in the center where the weight of desire came to rest. Pencil will smear and paint will warp green and brown, but photograph is forever. This one sparkling moment of _Taeyong_ , captured in a crisp six hundredth of a second, immortalized. Bled and stretched to fit eternity in a way Ten couldn't.

Johnny steeps in the irony until his arm goes sore from holding the photo. He tosses it over the side of the bed and goes to take a shower.

(Before he leaves, he'll comb the room for it. Curse a little, then smooth its corners lovingly and forget it in the innermost pocket of his leather jacket for months. That's the way it goes: memory warps quick outside of the humid cradle of the city.)

The door is unlocked when Johnny finds himself in the hallway outside of Ten's apartment.

Taeyong stands in the center of the room, bloodred pattern of the rug blooming at his feet. Johnny walks slowly, the soles of his shoes crushing luxuriously into the tapestry. Gazing at the open balcony doors, Taeyong doesn't move as Johnny drifts to his side.

There's ash on the center of Taeyong's lips and dusting over his knuckles, as if he couldn't help but reap a final kiss from Ten's wistful grin. Johnny offers a cigarette, and those smudged lips part.

Johnny leans close to light it, and Taeyong turns his head slightly, glancing up. Near enough for his breath to lace faintly over Johnny's skin, for Taeyong to catch the dip and snag of Johnny's traitorous throat. He straightens, dizzy, and Taeyong reaches to pinch the cigarette between his middle and ring finger. He shudders as he exhales.

"Thank you," he says, and the spark of the lighter dies out before Johnny can catch his own cigarette on its wavering flame.

"What for?"

"For those extra minutes." Taeyong stares at the floor. Ten's jacket is hanging across his shoulders, and his fingertips drift to its velvet lapel, stroking absentmindedly. "Ten thought you'd go through with it, but I didn't know..."

He trails off, and Johnny rakes a hand through his hair.

"Even you noticed me?" he jokes, though his heart is caught somewhere between his palms and stomach and his voice sounds faraway, halting. "I've lost my touch."

Lips quirking, Taeyong's hand falls to his side. Ash tumbles to the floor. "Ten pointed you out."

Johnny pushes the unlit cigarette along his teeth, looks at Taeyong slantwise. There's color in his cheeks, high and sweet. He's the kind of gorgeous that catches you between the lungs, the type of lover that drapes over your body like butter on a burn. Johnny could watch him forever and never need to touch, never need to eat, never need salvation.

"Ten wasn't sad about it," Taeyong notes. "He lived a good life. Too good, he'd say."

Johnny keeps on looking, presses the smoke into his pocket. "And you?"

"Me?" Taeyong blinks, lifts his gaze from the flourishes of the rug. He touches his throat, fingertips skating around the burgeoned and dimming bruises where Ten must have rolled his life between sharp teeth; held, but never pierced. "Well. It could be sweeter."

Johnny breathes, touches his tongue to his top lip and reels it in slow. "There are other vampires out there."

Taeyong's touch trails down to his shoulder, gripping the velvet of Ten's jacket with something animal, something desperate, before his posture uncoils, knuckles loosen, head sags in defeat. "And other vampire's lovers," he whispers. "Other angels. Other gods."

The cigarette is dropped to the carpet and crumbled under Taeyong's heel as he strides to the bed. He tugs the jacket from his shoulders and folds it carefully, settles it between pillows. Velvet and silk and the memory of skin. His shoulders shake, and Johnny swears he sees a tear catch the brilliance of a stray sunbeam as it crashes to the bed.

After a minute, a stagnant heartbeat, Taeyong's frame stills, and he drags his hands through his hair. Johnny takes a step closer.

When he turns, Taeyong's smile is fresh as spring roses, fresh as a vein emptied into a cut. He swirls over to Johnny and lets slip his fingertips down Johnny's arm, touch sinking through his skin like honey.

Johnny laughs, quivering and empty, grazes Taeyong's jaw and the gracious curve of his collarbone.

"Take me away from here." Taeyong's gums are pink and Johnny could never say no. "I can't be lonely."

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed! comments and kudos are love <3


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